Did Anybody See Top Gear on Sunday?
If you didn’t, it’s repeated tonight on BBC2 at 8:00.
They asked the team to buy three reasonably priced UK-built sport cars and Richard Hammond turned up in a Lotus Elan like mine. What he didn’t say about it, was that Elans are second only to E-Types, when it comes to pulling posh birds of a cerain vintage!
He was also unable to show, how it is still one of the fastest cars across country. Read some of my posts from last year about the car.
Interestingly, I am now driving the car again, in and out of its garage and round the yard. I can’t do this with my Jaguar as the clutch is too strong for my gammy left leg.
Perhaps, one day I’ll be back on the road! But it will be in the Elan!
Understanding UK Regional Accents
There has just been a discussion about regional accents in the UK on Radio 5. Apparently a survey has shown that the Geordie accent is the easiest to understand and is often chosen as the voice in sat-navs.
That’s as maybe, but what bright spark put the call centre for the Child Support Agency for East Anglia in Northern Ireland. Suffolk people couldn’t understand a word that was said. My late wife, C, was a barrister and this caused her a lot of grief, as some of her clients couldn’t get their finances sorted at all.
A Good Idea from South Dakota?
South Dakota operates a 24/7 sobriety progam for drink-driving and domestic violence, where offenders have to be tested twice a day. You should read this piece in The Guardian, where Kit Malthouse, London’s Deputy Mayor, expands his ideas, based on the South Dakota experience, in detail.
I think that the idea is worth trying.
I also think that it could be applied to some drink-driving cases. I have only been breatherlysed once and I was well under the limit and as at the present time, I can’t drive, it would be no benefit to me personally at the moment. But supposing now, someone is just over the limit and was perhaps caught say because they were stopped because a brake-light was out, would it not be a good idea to fine the driver and put them on a 24/7 sobriety program. It would not mean they lost their job and had problems ferrying children and elderly relatives. They would just have a bit of inconvenience about going to be tested twice a day.
There is also the point, that routine often brings people round and improves their lives. I have mentored people in the past, who’ve asked me how they can get and keep a job. Often it depends on a lot of small things, like being on time, being smart and polite. I’ve told them this and often a few months later, I’ve got a thanks.
What is a kilowatt-Hour?
I have just been watching BBC Breakfast as people were trying to understand their electricity statements, which have been braqnded as confusing, by Consumer Focus.
A couple of those interviewed asked what a kilowatt-Hour was? Where were they at school? Or is such basic information not taught any more?
It’s very simple really! It’s the amount of electricity that a one bar or one kilowatt fire would use in an hour, or the amount a hundred watt light bulb would use in ten hours.
We really must teach these basic facts of life better. Perhaps then, that waste of our taxes, Consumer Focus, could be dismantled or just deal with genuine complaints, safety and health issues.
Here is their Annual Report for Consumer Focus for 2009/10. They spent £11,676,000 on staff costs for a start and they only had 226 employees. So that’s £51, 663 per employee.
Another Onshore Oil Field
They were talking yesterday on the radio about the SIngleton oil field, just a few miles north of Goodwood race course in Sussex. This piece in the Daily Mail says that some of the locals don’t even know it’s there!
There is also this web page at the University of Southampton web site showing all the small oil fields in the south of England.
You don’t hear of many problems, so perhaps the US could satisfy its thirst for oil, by driling in more environmentally sensitive areas on shore. There would appear to be less risk, if they follow the English precedent. Incidentally, BP seems to be the operator in a lot of these fields.
The Anonymous Widower 